Reaper
by Ice Princess Alice
Summary: "Your smile holds vice, lies, and death. But yet, I can't help but love you, and for that, I'll live without you by living a lie. Because the truth hurts too much." The monster doesn't know love, only bloodshed in battle and silence after kill. I fell in love with the monster when he tried to kill me. And pay I shall, for there is no sin sweeter than the devil's forbidden love.


**~Prologue~**

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**"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."**

**- Albert Einstein**

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**A**nother tale ends, its tattered pages fluttering like a butterfly's wings. My hand reached out and extinguished the fire with a faint snap. My dream plunged into surreal darkness.

As always, _they _came in a welcoming creep. _They _waited, a pitiless vacuum devoid of stars, galaxies, _life_. And yet it was teeming with entities that existed as a mockery—or a warped memory—of it all.

I could sense how cold it was, how cold _they _all were, and hungry. I traveled and projected there as my body lay immobilized in bed under the care of a dormant brain. A brain that paralyzed limbs at night so they wouldn't lash at imaginary horrors. A brain filled with vibrant life, manipulating a flesh marionette with ease until it could move no more.

Only consciousness can withstand the hostility of them, and sometimes it too is absorbed. There aren't many laws here, and sanity is not one of them. _They _are a mirror that shows us what we desperately don't want to see: the reflections of the nightmares we create for ourselves becoming flesh.

It knows our souls, and its countless denizens search for us always, occasionally drawing the strength to pull us close during our darkest hours, deepest dreams.

Somehow, minds materialize as something that can feel and be felt, and thus I experienced it in vivid detail. A dream, but so much more than that.

Drifting aimlessly above a familiar vast, featureless plain, I felt an astral body begin to form, trying to become something as close to my physical self as possible. Sparsely packed, low frequency particles were assembled, cycled together until they functioned meaningfully.

I suddenly felt a true chill on something that passed for my skin as well as somewhere profoundly deeper. I breathed in deep through phantom lungs, detecting a fetid stench that did not even exist. Even in the absence of light, it was easy to see everything as it went on and on, so dead and dark and desolate.

There was no wind, only expectant silence akin to that which occurs in the wake of death, when all the birds stop singing as a predator's jaws snap shut and send life surging out of one vessel and into the next, stunning whoever watches into the quiet that comes with billions of years of grim experience.

With almost detached certainty, I knew that plenty of _them_, ravenous as they were, would savor me in a similar way, but since there was no meat to chew, no cells to interact, no bacteria or protein to break down and turn into fuel, the only thing they could consume was my mind.

This was infinitely worse than its earthly counterpart because once they had me, _they _would never let me go. _They _are many things, and relentless is one of them. Some are like lost children, trying to locate their creators as countless slumbering humans pass in and out of the dreamscape, by chance or pain or need.

_They _have senses so strange and sharp that even the smallest point of light passing through would draw them, from few to crowds to legions. Others are like demons, vicious and insane. The only thing that would satisfy is trapping the light, eating it slowly, keeping the body in bed and the mind in the crossroads.

Something leaped out of the murk, out of seemingly nothing at all. It startled me and I found myself standing in the cold grainy soil. Not far away, a loping gray creature ghosted by with grace, its crooked claws soundless as they hit the ground.

Its eyeless face seemed to survey the landscape ahead with frenetic urgency, as though somehow it could see. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as the beautiful abomination sprinted and paused repeatedly, its smokey limbs quivering. It ran farther away, toward the tarry black seashore off in the distance, then came frighteningly close again quicker than it seemed possible. It seemed to be on a diligent search.

The more I watched it, the distance between us seemed to grow and shrink at the same time. Perception was unreliable here. Perhaps _they _were only an illusion fabricated and seen differently depending on the mind experiencing it.

I had no idea how many legs the creature had, but there were too many to count. Some short and stubby, others gaunt and spindly, others spiraling bizarrely outward, bristling with talons, teeth, twisted bone. It brought to mind gargoyles perched on cathedrals, but only subtly. It was terrifying. Yet I was fascinated, enraptured by the way its slack gray flesh rippled across the loping form. Its head hung low and limp, as though the neck had been broken. I could sense its frantic hunger. I could also sense its torment, but only faintly, as though a barrier stood between us.

If it saw me, then what? Would it detect the energy that only a human emanates in the grip of fear and awe? Would those flailing parodies of biology be able to pierce my phantom skin?

Regardless of whether it could, this world allowed no death. Because none of them were even alive. The line was not only blurred but flowing together with countless other insanities because everything was energy with small bits of matter in between. Coming to an end meant merely a cessation of one kind of existence and the beginning of another. Like a solid being converted to a gas. Energy was recycled again and again, eaten and regurgitated, ignited and set free only to be caught again.

Chaos. Even as I felt the denizens of this demented world pick up on me from far "away" and come hurrying to investigate, I could not look away from the gray creature. Its limbs jerked in all directions, seeking and squirming. It sat up and raised what passed for a head like a dog about to bay at the sky, but there was no sky.

Only that void that went on and on for eternity.

After standing still for an unknown amount of time, it thrashed its entire body violently, as though disturbed from rest. What could such a thing be thinking about, in this endless night?

Suddenly it was screaming. A pathetic despondent wail. No, its soul was screaming, and like the treading feet, ever so silently. A wave of crippling despair lanced through my phantom heart. Almost a tangible thing, it hit me like a storm of hail.

I collapsed, overtaken with the weight of its psychic attack. I felt pain in places bodies could never perceive. I saw visions of disasters I had never seen before, the wincing faces of heroes and fiends and victims I've never met. Animals hurled themselves against the bars of their cages in desperate attempts for freedom, and people did the same in more ways than one.

The gray creature and its heartbreaking visions were beautiful in a tragic way, but one thing stood out like a lantern in the dark: by its need to seek out anything, responsible or not, that could diminish its misery, the gray creature had trapped itself here. What it had been searching for was something it could share the agony with, something to hear its soul scream.

It was vengeful and in its nonexistent eyes, all other entities were the source of its anguish, mocking figures to be punished in a repeating cycle that all void creatures sunk to.

All of them, in different forms, infinitely alien but sharing one common bond shockingly similar to our own.

**A**bruptly, the puppeteer brain released its hold, and I woke breathless, the images of the dream playing like a constant video loop behind my eyes until I fumbled for the light switch and remembered to breathe. Cold sweat sheathed my clothes. Heat ran down my body like a human furnace.

Even in waking life, the despair of that gray creature resonates during any occasion of chaos, violence, loneliness, loss. Or even in the wake of one's own weakness. In such places as the void, they are flowers watered with acid tears, fed with the ashes of phoenixes who forgot they could rise. They are dying stars, never to be fully blotted out but longing for the light of hope to pierce the membrane of their madness, one foot in the door to death while the other still lingered in the human plane.

_They _are victims of _life _themselves, lurking as unfinished works in humanity's canvas. _They _are the demons that lurk in the shadows, present only in my dreams.

There is a certain time when the soul stirs. Not merely your own, but those of the _others_, the ones you thought you grew out of, the ones you always knew in unseen corners of your mind but never wanted to acknowledge consciously.

When the shadows grew long and the sun slid down and you went inside, when your parents tucked you in and told you it would be all right, their icy eyes were focused, and their psychic tendrils were already coiled to grab you.

There is a certain time of morning when they seek and find even the most guarded sanctuary. You may not wake, but part of you feels them there. They watch you stir, listen to you breathe, and as the clock progresses through those strange hours, they decide whether or not to take you away.

Don't squirm underneath their prodding. Those deemed most fearful are chosen. Age often does not matter to them, but it is said they favor young children, those least believed to be rational, those whose filters haven't yet been established. Clean slates.

If you happen to wake while they are considering you, don't give any indication. Do not move. Keep emotion flat and still. They will always know when you're afraid, but if they think you're asleep, assume it is just another dream.

And maybe, when the sun returns and ushers them back to their origins, they will leave you be.

But the dreamworld is a world you must always return to, and when the sun fades, the light dies, and your soul sleeps, they'll be there, waiting, watching, _desiring_...

And once they ensnare you, your soul will belong to them...

_Forever_...

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_**L**ies, such delicious lies you tell. You leave them for me to find and I follow you wherever you wander and you don't even know it. And that's not the only marker of the prey, the fear is also there, and its like a drug, a bitter drug that courses through even the simplest organisms. But we like you best. You're special. Come closer and give us a kiss._

He danced through the dream like the silhouette of a dragon; sleek, graceful, and intimidating. The incubus, he realized, was one he'd never before seen of. It fascinated him... Intrigued him, almost. For the dream within a dream was a never ending plane of nothingness.

And he, he who thrived on negativity, was a monster, treading through chaos as if he were the very source of destruction.

Then came the atrocities, galloping into his view. It thrashed about and snarled, looking for a meal to satisfy itself, and when it's eyes landed on him, he almost smiled in amusement.

Leathery lips furrowed back, revealing decayed teeth. An intangible twist of morbid entertainment settled into the monster's heart as he openly offered himself to the Stray, a seeminglessly harmless offering.

The beast roared, buckled, and shot for him.

_One... Two... Three..._

_Snap. Crunch. Clutter. Crash._

It all happened in a fraction of a second. One minute, the monster was standing there, willing to make himself a sacrifice for the starved creature in front of him, and the next, he stood poised over the mutilated corpse of the Stray. It didn't even have the time to scream.

Now that the figure was no longer sheathed by shadows, one could see him all too well. His soul, a monster in every aspect, was in compatibility with his appearance. He wasn't one of those disgustingly horrid creatures you would think of monsters to be—he was neither slimy, obese, nor did he sport any of the common characteristics of the popular monster. Instead, he appeared human-like, angelic even—if not for his dragon-like structure.

Satsified with the bloodshed, the monster continued on with his path, finding dark pleasure as the rest of the Strays shrieked and hollered fearfully as he passed by. He drank in their horror and bathed in it, loving every second of it.

Some even swept past him in an attempt to scare him off, teeth bared and hackles rising.

_Take the reaper's hand and feel the flesh of someone just like you. No rot awaits us beyond, my friend. No stench of decay and no bile and blood and all manner of pain and disappointment. Just take the reaper's hand and call it a day, shall we?_

But, he kept walking.

Amidst the years-old grime and the yellowed sepia tone, reminders of what's lost, again and again and again. Amidst the wreckage of his half-lived life, because he told himself there is a place somewhere in the darkness before him where you will find something worthwhile.

It seemed as though the shadows had taken over the world.

He despaired.

Because he had hoped, and the stories spoke of butterflies in the green grass, and stars, and beautiful things. Because alone in the dark, he knew they were simply exquisite lies.

He despaired, and cried, and hurt.

The monster continued to tread on his path, until he reached his destination. His target.

**I**t lay in the miasma of the void, a little more than a pixie to him. Nevertheless, he trudged up to the soon-to-awaken body until he was a good seventy feet away from her and studied her from a leverage.

So this was her, was it?

She wasn't pretty. She wasn't even unique. She was utterly ordinary; the face you passed in a crowd every day, the wrong number you dialled, the girl behind the counter.

That simply made her even more dangerous.

Because, the monster knew what she didn't. Behind that average face was a savage, twisted soul, one who could change the course of the universe if she wanted to. A force that could throw off the worlds balance if she wanted to, bringing victory to some and destruction to others.

She lingered in minority, like shadows, he thought, almost smiling. Just like shadows, she was something that could creep up on you with scarce a warning and swamp you in hidden power.

He smirked, pleased at the challenge she would present.

So, this was who he was sent to _kill_.

Mikan Sakura.

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**A/N: This is the first story I've posted in a while... I wanted to do a sort of cross between Instincts (my first multi-chaptered story, which sucked), Experiment XIII (which has been deleted... look in profile for details) and another supernatural story I had (don't remember the name... had something to do with vampires). I just want to see how much I've grown, not just in writing skills, but in ambition as well. **

**Romance won't exactly be the main theme in this fanfiction. There will be romance, but it'll come on as... subtle. So, if you're looking for a steamy, hot romance with no plot, don't read this. **

**Yes, it's a supernatural story. Will it have to do with human experimentation like Experiment XIII? Sorry, no. Vampires, werewolves, fairies, all that shebang? Yeah, sure, but Mikan isn't going to be some sort of angel. And Natsume won't be a vampire or werewolf. I think that idea is overdone, by me and others. **

**Many hugs to SharedKisses18 for keeping up with my rants and giving her opinion on this story. **


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